Members of a City Council subcommittee released plans Tuesday to increase the amount of transitional housing in Pittsburgh to help people experiencing homelessness.
Transitional housing is commonly seen as the step between overnight shelters and permanent housing — a place where people can live for extended periods of time and receive services such as mental health and addiction support.
The city and county have been working to combat the growing number of people experiencing homelessness for years, including the development of the Second Avenue Commons Downtown. Second Avenue Commons includes about 45 single-occupancy rooms, which can be used as transitional housing.
“Last summer we were hearing from the public and we were seeing ourselves the crisis that we were having from some of our residents who were unhoused,” Councilwoman Deb Gross said during a news conference Tuesday. “And so we realized that we needed to do something differently. [Second Avenue Commons] is a great front door, but what you need is additional sites… where you can stay however long you need.”
The proposed plans include three different styles of transitional housing: one that would be built from the ground up and resemble Second Avenue Commons, a second that would be a village of tiny homes, and a third that would transform already existing buildings into transitional housing.
There is “no firm price” on what any of the three options would cost, Councilman Anthony Coghill said. The Second Avenue Commons cost $22 million and was funded through a variety of city, county and private agencies.
The first option would require finding a site and designing and building a new facility. Unlike the Second Avenue Commons, instead of having various types of housing it would be entirely made up of single-occupancy rooms. Preliminary designs estimate such a facility would have 114 units.
Tiny-home villages have been used in other cities to combat homelessness, and the units range in size from just a bedroom to miniature houses with kitchens and bathrooms.
Council’s proposed plans outlined a village of 10 units with a separate common area building on land the city already owns. A tiny home is a much faster option than starting a building design from scratch, Ms. Gross said.
City Council commissioned a study last August to look at city-owned parcels that would be compatible with tiny homes. Results of the study haven’t yet been made public.
Maria Montano, a spokesperson for Mayor Ed Gainey, said Tuesday that no parcels of land have been identified for the village yet.
The final transitional housing design is what Ms. Gross called “adaptive reuse,” in which the city and county work together to purchase a building that can be transformed into transitional housing. The committee's design plans outlined a building that could be renovated to have 50 to 60 units, with existing restrooms already on site.
“We plan to address and pursue all of these one at a time or all three at once, whatever fits into the budget,” Mr. Coghill said.
These ideas can be realized by bringing together community partners to help with planning and funding, Councilwoman Erika Strassburger said.
PNC Bank and UPMC were both key partners in opening Second Avenue Commons, she said, as was the county’s Department of Human Services, which receives federal funding specifically to combat homelessness.
Ms. Strassburger said Council is “seeking to replicate” the process and partnerships that made Second Avenue Commons a reality, and people who currently are or have experienced homelessness should be a part of the process.
Ms. Gross, Ms. Strassburger, Mr. Coghill and Councilman Bobby Wilson spent the last six months meeting with various service providers, outreach groups and officials at the city and county levels.
They also toured other examples of transitional housing in Pittsburgh and New York City. As a result, they “developed a stronger grasp of the sheer breadth of the issue,” the committee wrote in a report.
Many of the committee members acknowledged that homelessness is a “multi-layered” problem and that transitional housing is just one step in helping people.
“Nothing’s off the table for us,” Mr. Coghill said. “We’re not saying this is going to eradicate homelessness in Pittsburgh, but we feel this is a good start.”
Hallie Lauer: hlauer@post-gazette.com
First Published: May 9, 2023, 8:40 p.m.
Updated: May 10, 2023, 9:58 a.m.
